Chapter Text
Marian Hawke was pissed.
The last thing she remembered was that freakishly large spider trying to kill her with its disgusting spiky feet. She'd run out of arrows and just started hitting it with her bow, feeling a rush of relief as she watched Alistair and Lavellan dive through the fade portal to safety, and one of guilt as she thought of leaving Fenris alone.
So she was probably dead.
But that wasn't what pissed her off.
What pissed her off was that her afterlife looked like Kirkwall.
Dark smelly Lowtown Kirkwall complete with mercenaries eyeing her hungrily and Lady Elegants's potions shop in the corner.
Hawke had hoped for a warm beach, or a cozy cabin somewhere, the last place she wanted to spend eternity was in Kirkwall, and she certainly didn't want to spend it fighting some idiotic merc's who were getting ready to rob the silly little girl walking alone at night.
Nevermind that she was armed to the teeth and covered in spider gore.
There were only five of them, and the final two ran after Hawke took out the first three. She didn't even have to draw her knives.
She eyed the bodies around her and decided this probably was not the afterlife, because where the hell did people who died here go? And why would it smell so damn bad?
Unless the maker actually had a sense of humor, it was probably safe to assume she was still alive, however miserable.
She followed the two that ran with practiced stealth, because she already knew they were trouble, and she also really felt the need to hit something right now.
But she never got the chance.
As she rounded the corner, Hawke recognized the ever-familiar sounds and sights of magic, and the two dead bodies wearing the mercs patchwork uniform. The spells she saw being used were familiar, as was the mage, warm brown eyes and heart shaped face looking sweet as ever, even covered in someone else's blood.
Bethany's Grey Warden uniform no longer looked awkward on her, she had stopped hunching her shoulders when she walked, stopped trying to hide herself, because she no longer had anything to hide from.
Hawke met her eyes and Bethany daintily stepped over the body of a dead mercenary to reach her sister.
"Marian!" She exclaimed, and ran towards her, squeezing her into a quick hug and then pulling back just far enough to make eye contact.
"Do you know what's going on?" Bethany asked earnestly.
Hawke squeezed her back tightly, she hadn't seen her sister in over a year and it felt good to hold her again.
"I was going to ask you that, Bethy, you are the mage"
Bethany rolled her eyes and shrugged. "It's probably magic, but it's not the fade, I know that much."
"So I'm definitely not dead,” Hawke muttered.
"What?" Bethany tightened her grip on Hawke's shoulder. "Why would you be dead? I thought you were helping Varric?"
"Since when was me helping Varric not life threatening?" Hawke smirked and Bethany just sighed. She looked so old, although she didn't yet share Marian's grey streaks.
"Well, we're in Lowtown," Bethany continued, "my least favorite place."
"More than the gallows?" Hawke joked.
Bethany cracked a smile at that, and spun her staff onto her back.
Hawke knelt down beside the dead mercenaries, and pulled a bow and quiver off the skinnier one. Knives were nice, but stealth might prove the best method for dealing with... whatever this was.
"Well we are in Kirkwall" Marian said as they started walking, "Should we try back home?"
Bethany just nodded, eyed scanning the area for any other gangs who might try to catch them by surprise.
Hawke remembered the last time she'd been in that house. After Bethany had left it had been tough, but being there after mother died...
She would have moved if the house hadn't held so much of what had been lost.
Most nights after that had been spent in Fenris's mansion after that, or she would stay overnight in Ander's clinic for any minor injury. She'd passed out drunk in the hanged man more than once and woken up in Varric or Isabela’s bed. They all knew why she did it, why she couldn't just go back to her nice estate in Hightown and be happy and rich.
Now the estate was gone, but so was everywhere else. Or at least it should be, but here she was, walking through parts of Lowtown that she knew had been destroyed. Places she had helped destroy.
"This is weird.” she said aloud.
"That's one word for it." Bethany agreed, as they passed out of the slums and into the market place.
The gangs out tonight looked at them curiously, but Bethany pulled her staff back out and carried it at her side, willing the stone on top to glow lightly. Not even the stupidest of mercenary groups wouldn't go up against a Grey Warden mage if they had any brains.
They made it to Hightown without another fight, and Hawke knew something was wrong. Based on the shops and active gangs she'd seen, this wasn't the Kirkwall Marian had left. It was older, from before the Qunari, before the war. It was dangerous and smelly, but untouched by the battles Hawke had fought in (and maybe a few she had started).
And the Hawke estate was dark.
Marian crouched by the door and pulled out her lock picks while Bethany stood watch, twirling her staff nervously.
"I don't like this," Bethany said.
"I'm starting to have an idea what might have happened" Hawke replied, thinking of the inquisition, the stories of a dark future told by Varric's wild tongue that she hadn't believed at the time. If the inquisitor could go see possible futures, why wouldn't it be possible to go see things that already happened?
"What do you think-" Bethany started to ask, but the lock clicked and a smuggler lookout woke from his nap by the door and blinked in surprise.
Marian ducked and the smuggler was thrown backwards by a force bolt.
Hawke loved Fenris, she did, but makers balls did she miss having a mage at her back.
"Thanks" she said, sliding into the dark house.
"Remember when our house was occupied by smugglers?" Hawke whispered in the empty front hallway. More whispers and sounds of shuffling came from further in the house.
"The slavers, yes of course." Bethany said. "And remember how we couldn't fight them because we weren't skilled enough?"
Hawke smirked and drew a knife. "Ah the good old days." She said, and turned to the house.
Bethany caught her wrist and pulled her back.
"I still don't know what's going on sister, why are the smugglers here?"
Hawke faced her sister and sighed, "Quick version: When I was, uh- helping Varric, there was some stories I heard about people getting displaced into different timelines. The inquisitor says he was thrown forward in time and saw some apocalyptic future or something. I thought Varric was just spinning some wild tale to raise the stakes, but I don't know Bethy, this looks a lot like what Varric described."
"The Inquisitor?"
Hawke bit her tongue. "I told you I was helping out Varric. He was helping out the Inquisition. You know how much we love helping."
Bethany huffed in the way that meant they would be talking about this later, but she moved on.
"I've heard about time magic. It's ancient, dangerous and requires a ridiculous amount of power. Or blood. And that's for short periods; this looks like years, and why are we in Kirkwall? We should still be in the physical place we were when the spell was cast."
"And where were you?" Hawke had to ask. She'd been in the fade; it wasn't technically a physical place.
"I was-" Bethany paused. There was a rift near the village Aveline and Donnic had taken me and demons kept pouring out everyday. I thought maybe if I went inside, went into the fade, I could close it, or at least take out enough demons to give the town a relief."
Of course. Hawke rolled her eyes and smiled. "You're too damned kind, baby sister." She said. Hawke used to worry Bethany's empathy would get her killed, but she'd seen Bethany fight when she was angry, and decided her sister was tough enough without having to be another angsty prick.
"And where were you?" Bethany's voice asked suspiciously.
"Oh. Me too. The fade, I mean." At least now she could rationalize it. If the spell couldn't send them to a physical place, it would make sense to send them here. A place they both remembered.
"And what were you doing in the fade. I thought you said you were helping the Inquisition."
"I was. I was helping the Inquisition in the fade."
"And what was the Inquisition doing in the fade?" Bethany said shortly.
"Fighting giant spiders, what else?"
"You hate the fade, why would you-" Bethany was cut short as Hawke tackled her.
Their voices had been rising steadily since the argument had begun, and they had both seemed to have forgotten they were in the front hall of a house filled with armed illegal smugglers.
They both hit the ground hard, and the arrow Hawke had heard whistling embedded itself harmlessly in the wall behind where Bethany's head had been.
"Shit!" They said in unison, and Hawke drew her own bow.
"Wait," Bethany said, grabbing her and pulling her behind the wall.
"If this is the past, we shouldn't fight them, it could affect the future."
"Why is that a bad thing? The future sucks."
"Marian."
"Fine." Hawke made a dramatic show of putting the bow back on her back, and Bethany threw up an ice wall between them and the smugglers.
"That's going to cause water damage", Hawke scolded her as they ran out the front door.
"Would you have rather me used fire?".
"Point taken", Hawke said as they rounded another corner. She looked up and felt a strange emotion. She'd taken them to Fenris's mansion, mostly on subconscious memory of walking there so many times. A candle was burning in the room he always sat in, and she had to swallow down the urge to run in there and apologize for things she hadn't even done here, might not ever do.
"We should go to Anders." Bethany interrupted her thoughts.
"Yeah." Hawke agreed, still staring at the mansion. Going to Fenris was risky; depending on the year... well he had changed a lot. Walking into his house in the dead of night smelling of spider guts and speaking of time travel would have very unpredictable outcomes.
She turned her back on the mansion and started on the almost as familiar path to Anders's clinic.
They took the sewers to dark town. Hawke no longer had any desire to antagonize the lingering mercenaries, and it's not like she could smell any worse.
The clinic doors were closed, locked and bolted shut, but Hawke could still see a sliver of light escaping through the cracks in the old wood.
She'd replaced those doors herself, after she'd gotten the money, kept his supplies stocked and tipped his assistants back when the clinic still existed, before Anders had started a war.
She didn't even bother picking the lock; she knew Anders would answer, especially if he was still awake. She hoped he would recognize her. She hadn't changed that much, but there were greying streaks in her hair and wrinkles starting to form around her eyes. Regardless, Bethany was right. Anders was a lot more likely to believe the story of time magic than Fenris. Even in her future she doubted he would buy it without her putting it in front of his eyes. in the past he might call blood magic or demons and try to kill them. That would be awkward.
Hawke knocked out a melody to a song, and although the songs changed, Anders always knew it was her.
But it wasn't Anders who answered; it was a very tired looking and blood-spattered dwarf with a crossbow and a ponytail.
"Clinic's closed for the night" Varric said, scanning them up and down to make sure they weren't in any immediate danger of dying. "Try coming again in a few hours."
Hawke was taken aback. She definitely hadn't changed so much that Varric wouldn't recognize her, and Anders never turned away people who showed up on his doorstep covered in gore, even if it was the early morning hours. Unless...
"Varric?" A different, unfamiliar voice called from inside.
Another man stuck his head out from behind a wall, and Varric stepped back enough for Hawke to see him clearly.
He had jet-black hair and a beard of the same color covering most of his face. His eyes were brown, but more honey than chocolate, similar to Bethany's. Even his face looked oddly familiar, like she had seen him before but couldn't figure out where.
"Who's there?"
And his voice, it sounded almost like her fathers'.
"We're friends of Anders." Hawke assured the strange Varric, and pushed her way into the room before he could stop her.
The man behind the wall had ducked away, and Hawke pushed past. If Varric didn't recognize her something was wrong, something was very very wrong. She needed to see Anders, needed him to recognize her, needed him to tell her what was happening, and how to fix it because if she had to relive Kirkwall she would probably just go on a murdering spree.
She turned the corner, Bethany at her heels and saw Aveline, muscular arms crossed and the only one standing up. At her side she carried Wesley's shield, and her uniform was that of a guard, not the Captain. The bearded man leaned back in a chair, and raised an eyebrow when Marian walked in, but didn't make a move to stop her. A staff leaned against the wall, easily in reach, and she recognized the feigned relaxation that she too practiced. She had no doubt that that man could be in a fight to the death in a half second if she made a move.
And then there was Anders, dirty yellow bangs falling in his face as he leaned over a cot, blue healing magic working its way down a mans leg, not even looking up when she entered. He trusted Varric and Aveline and the strange man in the corner to keep him and his patient safe. Safe from her.
Her mind raced. How was Aveline here without her? Aveline would have died in Lothering if they hadn't met, and how had Marian never met this new apostate? Aveline would never be able to keep such a secret from her, and Varric never would. And on the table, who could her three closest friends be guarding in the middle of the night that she had never known about?
They man grunted agitatedly and pushed himself up with his elbows to see who had walked in. She met his icy blue eyes and her heart stopped.
Because there, looking pissed off with an arrow in his leg and a scowl on his face, was a ghost.